Sunday, February 13, 2011

EKB Capsule News...West Virginia...2-14-'11

U.S. Marshals arrested Ronnie Long Saturday evening in Morgantown. Long led police from several Marion County departments on a high-speed chase about a week ago after allegedly stealing a Corvette belonging to Senator Joe Manchin's brother, Rock Manchin of Farmington. Long wrecked the car when he smashed into a tow truck in Fairmont, sending him to a Morgantown hospital. Before police could charge him, Long detached his IV tubes and fled.

West Virginia has the nation's highest rate of drug overdose deaths. More than 90 percent of those deaths involve prescription drugs. West Virginia officials say they're disappointed that Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who took office in January, didn't include funding for a planned prescription drug monitoring program in the proposed budget he unveiled last week. Florida's prescription drug regulations are notoriously lax. In 2009, lawmakers there approved plans for a monitoring program, which would electronically track all prescriptions filled in the state to cut down on "doctor shopping." Police in West Virginia say it's so common for people to travel to Florida to load up on prescriptions at pain clinics that flights from Huntington to Florida have been nicknamed "the Oxy Express." Federal and state officials are planning a one-day summit to discuss prescription-drug abuse in West Virginia. The summit is set for February 25th at the University of Charleston.

An Ohio woman is dead after a ski accident Saturday at Snowshoe Resort in Pocahontas County. Officials say the accident happened as the victim traveled off a marked trail with a group of friends and suffered a head injury. A spokeswoman for Snowshoe Mountain Resort declined to identify the woman by name, but the Akron Beacon Journal reported she was 22 year old Andrea Teodosio, whose parents are judges in Ohio's Summit County.

Nitro Police say 39 year old Roger Hayes Jr. was traveling Westbound on I-64 at the Nitro exit shortly after 3:00 A.M. Sunday morning when his vehicle struck a street sign and then a tree before rolling on its top, partially ejecting him. Hayes was pronounced dead at the scene.

Huntington-based St. Mary’s Medical Center is building a freestanding emergency department about 20 miles down the Ohio River in Ironton, Ohio. Ironton, which has about 11,000 people, lost its hospital 10 years ago. Lawrence County, Ohio, which has about 63,000 people, has not had a hospital or an emergency department since River Valley Hospital closed in 2001. The two-story, $13 million project is being built in partnership with the Ironton-Lawrence County Community Action Organization and should open in March or April 2012.

Special Metals has laid off 62 hourly employees at the Huntington plant and eight hourly employees at the Burnaugh, Kentucky plant. Precision Castparts Corp., which owns the Huntington plant, says the layoffs, which take effect Monday, are due to the slower than expected recovery in the industrial sector.

The ballot for West Virginia's next governor is final. Secretary of State Natalie Tennant's office conducted the drawing late Sunday afternoon. Officially 14 are in the race to become the next governor.